


The Unwanted

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Ever - Freeform, Gen, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Phantom Menace AU, Whump, Whumptober 2020, we were THIS close to this actually happening, what even is the council thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: Qui-Gon Jinn died on Naboo, leaving behind a young man and a little boy, afraid and discarded.Anakin is left alone yet again.Written for Whumptober 2020Day 8 - Abandoned
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Jedi Council, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 9
Kudos: 107





	The Unwanted

Anakin felt the floor drop out from underneath him.

It was like the sensation when his podracer had disconnected mid-circuit, or when he had taken off in the Naboo fighter for the first time.

But worse.

He felt so small, suddenly, smaller than he already was at just nine years old, a recently freed slave, surrounded by an entire Council of Jedi Masters, some of them decades upon decades old, one of them centuries old.

“But…he promised…” Anakin said, his voice wavering slightly.

Mace Windu stared back at him dispassionately. “He is unable to fulfill such a promise, young Skywalker.”

“He _promised_ ,” Anakin insisted. “They both did. He told me, at the pyre.”

“Nevertheless,” said Windu.

The child turned his gaze to the tiny Master Yoda, his eyes pleading, wringing his hands where he had tried to clasp them professionally behind his back. His neatly pressed, standard-issue Jedi initiate robes suddenly felt uncomfortable, wrong.

Yoda sighed. His large ears tilted down. “Correct, Master Windu is. Not prepared, is young Kenobi, to train you.”

A bolt of anger, propelled by fear.

Anakin had been told that he had natural shielding, probably a result of years of slavery and discipline—but it’s not enough to stop twelve Jedi Masters from noticing that he is a bundle of swirling, out-of-control emotions.

He senses their reciprocal shift—consideration, aloofness, indignation, sympathy—a mix that tells him that they are not going to budge, that they have so much power over his life that his feeble emotions mean nothing more to them than a mark of his failure.

He has won an impossible podrace, left his mother in chains, and helped overthrow a planetwide invasion, and they will never forgive him for _feeling things_.

Anakin’s lips tremble when he speaks. “I’m going to be a Jedi…Obi-Wan is going to be my Master.”

“No.” Ki-Adi Mundi shakes his large head. “Kenobi is newly Knighted and emotionally compromised. Qui-Gon Jinn called him unready for Knighthood, and while circumstances may have forced our hands on that matter…”

“The Council will not be moved on the issue of your apprenticeship,” Windu finished.

_What?_

“Qui-Gon said that Obi-Wan was ready! I was there!” Anakin said, outraged and suddenly not caring that everyone could see it. “I was there when they both promised to train me, too!”

“Skywalker, calm yourself,” said a Master that Anakin didn’t know.

“Young one, there are things beyond your understanding at work here,” said Master Billaba.

“The Council has intervened." Windu's eyes were hard. "Our decision is final, young Skywalker. Knight Kenobi will be involved in the kind of missions usual for new Knights. You are being granted a two-year probation among our Initiates. After that period, the Council will review you and your efforts, and we will determine which of us will train you. Perhaps to Knighthood, or perhaps simply to hone your control and help you achieve balance within yourself, before granting you the opportunity to live in your own way, wherever you choose.”

No.

_No!_

This couldn’t be happening, not after everything else, not after all he had done—he had _worked so hard!_ These people, they could never _understand_.

Not even Obi-Wan could, but he could come closest—he had lost so much and fought so hard—he had promised.

_Promised!_

A dull roaring filled Anakin’s ears and he missed whatever else the Masters said, right up until the doors opened and he was escorted out of the enormous room to be dumped in the creche, to begin two years of training that everyone else his age had been doing since infanthood—

And he saw Obi-Wan Kenobi, braid newly shorn and hair still Padawan-length, walking in the direction Anakin had just come from.

Obi-Wan saw him and paused. The color receded from his face, he opened his mouth to say something, and Anakin felt his heart contract and then erupt, shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces as the last of his tiny hope was squashed.

“You!” Anakin shouted, resisting the warning grip the Master escorting him laid on his shoulder. “You promised me, you _promised_! You’re a liar! You abandoned me, you’re just jealous—you didn’t want me and you lied!”

Obi-Wan took a single step forward, still mouthing soundlessly, but Anakin didn’t care.

Hot tears ran down his face. He knew that this display was hurting his chances, but his chances were already so low.

Slave, orphan, champion, angry little boy, battle hero, and now the discarded last pet project of a dead man and the reject of a man who only _seemed_ nice.

“You’re a liar,” sobbed Anakin Skywalker, looking up at a very pale Obi-Wan Kenobi. “And I hate you!”


End file.
